Lessons from Everyday Spy Part 1: The World is A Scary Place

I highly recommend this excellent interview with a real literal spy family who worked for the CIA, Andrew and Jihi Bustamante. It can be found here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fu6bYPTp_kE&t=15s.

 The key sentence that stuck out to me: 

“I don’t know if America is heading toward a future that I want to be part of”

I kind of understand the feeling. The world is a scary place. 

Jihi: “But when I worked with refugees, I realized that humans can be horrible. And know I worked with Bosnians and I worked with refugees from Rwanda where you know their neighbors literally turned on them. People who they had grown up with literally the next day came over with a machete or came over with a gun and killed their family members and chased them through forests or through whatever. And that can happen anywhere. 

That was the first time that I realized that anytime somebody says that can't happen here, that's a lie. That can happen anywhere. None of those people ever thought, "Oh, yeah, that could happen here." None of those people ever thought that. People always think that can't happen here. My neighbor would never do that to me. And that's not true. And then when I worked for CIA, that compounded the sense of the world behind the scenes is a dangerous place and you can't fully trust. I sound horrible saying these things. You can't fully trust anybody.

That's why. So, you know, you really have to understand that people are a combination of good and bad. And while I would like to think that people would always try to adhere to the good, I always have to keep in mind that people have a bad side to them and there's any set of circumstances that could trigger that.”

Steve Bartlett asks them: “Do you think we're in one such moment?”

They respond: “I think we're always in a moment. I think some part of the world are always in that moment.

And I'm a big believer of seeing  the writing on the wall. I don't think that, you know, my advice to people is don't be complacent. Just like Andy said, you know, don't be complacent in your business, but don't be complacent in your life either. Like when  before World War II kicked off, there was tons of writing on the wall of what was coming and people just kept thinking to themselves that can't happen here. It can't get that bad, can it? 

Forewarned is forearmed. When it comes to your health, wealth, security and family, I go back to the great Silicon Valley saying: "It's better to be a year early, than a day late.”